Insatiable

At the table beside theirs, a man wearing a black leather jacket and a pair of pleated

khaki pants chuckled as the cell phone at his belt suddenly squawked with static and a child’s

voice was broadcast, loudly enough to be heard over the entire second floor of the restaurant:

“Daddy? Are you there?”

Khaki Pants smirked and pressed a button on the side of the cell phone/walkie-talkie

device and shouted, “I’m here, munchkin! I’m in Times Square!” while the woman across the

table from him—who had a pair of extremely large fake breasts on prominent display in a toosmall crocheted shirt beneath her mink jacket—slurped a frozen daiquiri and typed into her

own cell phone with a set of long, French-tipped nails.

Alaric threw the man a warning look. Khaki Pants pretended not to notice it.

This would soon become his misfortune, Alaric decided.

“There she is,” Meena said, her foot going still again and her spine straightening like a

pool cue.

Alaric turned in his seat to see a girl slinking into a chair at a table for two in one

darkened corner of the restaurant, far from where the sunlight streamed through the plate-glass

windows looking out over Times Square.

The girl wore a pair of enormous sunglasses, even though they were indoors, which

might have been suspicious in and of itself….

If it weren’t for the ugly purple bruise he could see creeping out from beneath the lower

frame of one side of the sunglasses, indicating she was suffering from a fresh, tender-looking

black eye. She wore a gray hoodie pulled up over her head, with tufts of not very attractively

cut blond hair sticking out from beneath it here and there.

The thing about her that struck Alaric most of all was the shoes she wore: white pumps

with enormous plastic butterflies on the toes.

She glanced around furtively from beneath the sunglasses…until her gaze fell upon their

table.

Then she looked away quickly and picked up one of the nine-page menus, behind which

she hid her battered face.

“Good God,” Alaric said, appalled. The victims he normally encountered had suffered

their abuse at the hands of the undead. It seemed hard to believe the person who’d done this, at

least according to Meena, had actually possessed a beating heart.

“Stay here,” Meena said, and laid her napkin on the tabletop. “I’ll be right back.”

“I’m going with you,” Alaric said, rising. He made it clear with his tone that this wasn’t

a request.

“Just stay where you are and let me handle this,” Meena snapped. “You’ll only scare

her.”

And then she was gone.

Alaric, astonished by this outburst—really, how could such a small person lose so much

blood every night and remain so… forceful ?—watched as Meena scooted out from the booth

and left the two men alone while she went to join Yalena, who looked up at her when she

approached…and immediately burst into tears. Meena moved a chair over and slipped an arm

around the younger girl’s shoulders, murmuring to her soothingly.

“My sister can be a real bundle of fun, can’t she?” her brother reflected as he poked the

ice in his drink with his straw. “Hard to see what this prince guy sees in her.”

Alaric grunted, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. The truth was, he was starting to form

his own theories on that particular topic….

“I mean, he could have anybody.” Jon went on. “Taylor Mackenzie, for instance. Why

would he want a pain in the ass like my sister?”

Why indeed? Alaric thought. “She met this woman on the subway?” he asked the

brother, instead of responding to his question. “And told her she had a vision she would die?”

“No,” Jon said, slurping his Coke. “Meena just told her to call if she got into trouble.

Meena doesn’t tell people they’re going to die. Nobody ever believed her when she did that. So

now she just gives them advice.”

Alaric looked back at Meena. “And when they don’t listen to the advice?”

Jon shrugged uncomfortably. “Well…then they die.”

Alaric shook his head. It was bad enough he was in a Shenanigans in Times Square with

a woman who was sleeping with the prince of darkness. And wouldn’t stop doing it.

But now he was finding out that this woman might actually really be what she said she

was…a psychic.

And if this was really true…then she might prove a valuable resource to his employer.

Yes. Why not? Meena Harper—not her brother—might be just the person the Palatine

needed to help in their battle against the undead.

On the one hand, having someone around who could warn them when he and his fellow

guards were about to walk into a deathtrap might come in handy.

On the other hand…Alaric wasn’t sure how much time he actually wanted to spend with

Meena Harper in the future.

“Daddy, guess what?” blared the cell phone on the hip of the man at the table beside

Alaric’s. “We’re watching Astro Boy !”

“That’s great, buddy!” Khaki Pants shouted into his cell phone. Alaric balled a fist.

“Here you go,” the waitress cried, arriving with a heaping tray of fried foods. “Your

Taco Torpedoes and your Spicy Stax, curly fries, and Onion Brick—”

“What about my Sticky Wings?” Jon asked, looking worried.

“Right here,” the woman said, laying several thousand calories in a basket before

Meena’s brother.

“Sweet,” Jon said, and began digging in hungrily. They’d had to leave before he had

time to finish breakfast due to Meena’s insistence that they meet Yalena on time.

Alaric eyed the food on the table in front of him. It all looked amazingly…good.

Particularly the Sticky Wings.

Jon, apparently noting Alaric’s longing gaze, said, “Dig in. Seriously. You won’t believe

how good it is. And you better eat it before Meena gets back over here, because there won’t be

anything left when she’s done with it. That’s why she didn’t order. She was trying to be healthconscious, but it never works. She’s addicted to Shenanigans. She may look small, but you

wouldn’t believe how much food she can put away. You should see her secret candy drawer at

work. It’s truly disgusting.”

Alaric studied the many baskets in front of him. Then he shrugged, lifted a wing, and bit

into it.

The flavors that exploded into his mouth were like nothing he’d ever experienced. The

foie gras at Per Se couldn’t hold a candle to it.

Behind him, Khaki Pants’s cell phone beeped loudly, then roared with static. Munchkin

shouted, “Daddy, Daddy, Mommy wants to know when you’re coming home!”

Alaric laid down his chicken bone. Every one of his muscles tensed for what he knew

was coming next. He had no choice, really.

He was going to have to wipe the floor with Khaki Pants for disrupting his dining

experience and that of everyone around him. It was, simply, bad manners.

Jon wiped his face with a napkin. “No,” he said, holding up a hand. “Allow me.”

Alaric watched skeptically as Jon rose, stepped over to the table beside theirs, and

yanked the cell phone from the belt of Khaki Pants.

“Munchkin,” Jon said into the cell phone. “Can you tell your mommy that your daddy

can’t talk now because he’s having lunch with another woman? And that the other woman has

really big boobies? Be sure to tell Mommy about the lady’s boobies.”

“Okay,” said Munchkin excitedly into the phone.

“What the hell?” burst out Khaki Pants, standing up so quickly that his chair flipped over

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